First things first, it’s inevitable that people are going to compare the music of The White Stripes and Brendan Benson to THE RACONTEURS. How can they not? The weight of expectation was to rest heavily on this evening’s performance, the atmosphere was electric and you could cut it with a knife.
I personally took the opinion that as Jack White, Brendan Benson, and the Raconteurs all go back a long way, this is simply a matter of a group of friends getting together and doing this purely for the love if it. They state that this has been an ongoing project that they’ve been working on between their respective musical careers. Now that both have achieved success they can kick back, relax and have some fun.
There is no doubt that the majority of the audience was there to see Jack White perform, I never got to see him with the White Stripes, so I was curious. I expected to witness some diva-action going on, with Jack White taking centre stage and hogging the limelight. But in reality he was really gracious and the whole band came across as very democratic.
But back to the performance – as soon as the Raconteurs walked onto the stage, the crowd erupted into rapturous applause, and the venue was immediately lit with the eerie glow of a thousand mobile camera phones. Which left me thinking “Put your mobiles away and start paying attention to the LIVE GIG THAT IS TAKING PLACE IN FRONT OF YOUR FACES you group of NOKIA DICKHEADS”.
The performance itself was pure electric, there was room for everyone on stage, not just White and Benson. The drummer deserves a special mention for being so superb that I nearly collapsed, he made it look so easy.
Jack White underwent many, many guitar changes throughout the set, sometimes mid-song – not that it made any difference to what it sounded like from where I was standing (apart from the obvious electric/acoustic), but it added to the charm. And for the record, he is one of the most amazing axe-wielding, power-solo-dishin' guitarists I’ve ever seen in my life.
When they played their more upbeat tracks, a healthy mosh pit broke out - a huge swell of pink sweaty heads with plumes of steam rising up from them, I assume they had neatly tucked away their camera phones because there were no dots of light around. But everytime the tempo slowed down, there they piped up. The nutters.
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The music of the Raconteurs initially sounded like a 50-50 split between Brendon Benson's cheery indie pop, and Jack White’s filthy take on blues – the end result (live at least) being brilliant rock and roll. And as the gig progressed, their sound became more gigantic, more ball-breaking and more and more climatic – producing a sound not dissimilar to Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and a whole host of 1960’s psychedelic heavy rock bands. It was rock as it should be – earthy, gritty, filthy and sexy, played by real men, not effeminate boys pratting around with electro-pop.
And yes, they became progressively more self-indulgent with the 11-minute guitar solos, drum solos, bass solos, whatever, but as far as I’m concerned there is something deeply sexy about four guys thrashing the living daylights out of their guitars and a drummer who was evidently leading the Call of the Valkyrites.
At one point Jack White, who was seemingly playing down his charismatic tendencies – not that he needed to, the man is a natural – broke out into a demented ‘Crazy horses’ guitar riff before some serious drum-kit-humpin action, mid-solo. It was a good job I was leaning on something at the time, I might have ended up fainting in a puddle of my own desire.
After a rather superb encore,it seemed that eyes had been prised opened, and the crowd had been given a not-so-gentle reminder that amp-exploding rock n roll still exists. Secondly, I feel that this performance exceeded the expectations of many, myself included –just through their sheer brilliance as musicians. Although somehow I feel that none of the Raconteurs really feel they have anything to prove.
I left that gig feeling like I’d been shagged bandy, I couldn’t speak for about 10 minutes afterwards, and even though I don’t smoke, right then I would’ve murdered for that postcoital cigarette. Fantastic stuff.
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